AICC team arrives in Baliguda

Bhubaneswar: Exactly 15 days after the gruesome killing of five innocent villagers during an anti-Maoist operation in Gumudumaha village in Kandhamal district, a five-member team of All India Congress Committee (AICC) will visit the village on Saturday. The team has reached Baliguda in the district this afternoon and will visit Gumudumaha village later in the day.

The team comprising former Union minister V Kishore Chandra Deo, Jairam Ramesh, K H Muniyappa, Vincent Pala and Arun Oraon will try to ascertain the circumstances that led to the killing of the villagers. The team is assisted by Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) chief Prasad Harichandan, AICC secretary and Odisha in-charge Subhankar Sarkar and other leaders of the party.

Sources said the team will meet family members and relatives of the victims in Gumudumaha village.

This is the second time a Congress delegation is visiting Kandhamal after the incident that has provoked outrage across the State.

Seven days ago, a delegation of Congress MLAs led by Leader of Opposition in Odisha Assembly Narasingha Mishra visited the village and spoke to the family members of the victims. Mishra had then said: “Development is almost nil in the area. The issue of the development will be raised in Odisha Assembly on a priority basis.”

Moreover, Congress members led by Harichandan, AICC Secretary Bhakta Charan Das and former Nabarangpur MP Pradeep Majhi had gheraoed Baliguda police station on Tuesday and staged a demonstration demanding a High Court monitored judicial probe by a sitting judge into the Kandhamal firing.